Director’s cut — through Paris streets in a Ferrari, without the gendarmes

This description of what happened in Paris more than 30 years ago is on numerous Web sites. I got it in an e-mail from a friend. Click on the last sentence and it will bring you eight minutes and forty seconds of just what you need to start your day.

“On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris early in the morning.

“The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

“No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 mph in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

“Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground. If you haven’t seen this before it is a classic, if you have seen it I apologize, but it’s still a classic.